This is one of those few games that doesn't need add-ons and expansions to be so much fun!
Fallout 3 begins with a soldier in a power suit overlooking post-nuclear holocaust Washington DC with the Clinton, I mean Washington Monument in the background almost reduced to a skeleton structure. Ron Perleman announces the timeless Fallout line "War. War never changes." A line more powerful than Patrick Stewart's "Close shut the jaws of Oblivion". You start the game in Vault 101, one of the hundreds of Vaults all over the wasteland where the remnants of humanity were sheltered after the nuclear apocalypse 200 years ago in 2077. This nuclear war has reduced the country to wastes and ruins. There are no green leaves on the trees. The water is dangerously irradiated. Mutated dangerous animals roam the outdoors. Cities are dominated by Super Mutants and violent anarchist Raiders. The underground tunnels are populated by nuclear blast survivors known Ghouls. And regular humans struggle day to day to find food, water, and shelter just to get by.
After going through your childhood, you leave the Vault to search for your father who bolted out the front door looking for something or someone important. From there you can either continue the main storyline or explore anywhere you want to go and dive into various secondary stories and side missions. Heck, you can do both at the same time!
This game takes a long time just to complete the main story. I would say about 15 to 20 hours on your first playthrough. Easily twice that if you do everything else before the first add-on content becomes available. There might not be multiplayer but there will still be tons of mods coming over the next few months.
Graphics are very similar to Oblivion since both FO3 and it shares the same engine. No textures are shared between the two but the presentation is similar in significant ways like perspective and character interaction.
The voice acting in FO3 is much better than Oblivion with more voice actors and characters that all don't sound like Baurus if you know what I mean.
Combat is a lot more exciting with VATS which turns an average firefight into a sensational show.
Get this game. Seriously. I have had it for a month and I regularly find new things to do in Fallout 3.
100% in all possible areas.
Get it!
Now!